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Special Collections of the Claremont Colleges Library (Claremont, CA) has acquired an important copy of the piano-vocal score of Ferruccio Busoni’s first comic opera, Die Brautwahl, in time to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth in 1866. The work was premiered in Hamburg on 13 April 1912, but was not a success. The young conductor Artur Bodanzky (1877–1939), soon to become the head of the “German Wing” at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, offered to present a shortened version of the opera in Mannheim, where he had been chief conductor of the Grand Ducal Theatre since 1909. Busoni undertook the revisions in August 1912, and Bodanzky used this copy of the piano-vocal score, which became available from mid-May 1912, to indicate in ink the revisions he required. The score also contains cuts in red pencil that may derive from Busoni himself. The revised opera was performed in Mannheim on 24 May 1913. In November 1914, Busoni gave this annotated copy of the score to the American pianist Richard Buhlig (1880– 1952) in Berlin. Buhlig passed the score along to his student Peter Hewitt, after whose death in 1999 it came to the Victor Montgomery Music Library at Pomona College, where he had taught for many years. It was recently transferred to Special Collections, and it is available for study and research.

Graydon Beeks
Pomona College

Carrie Marsh
Claremont Colleges

The Central Office of Répertoire International des Sources Musicales (RISM) in Frankfurt, Germany, is pleased to announce the release of Muscat, its specialized program to catalog musical sources. Muscat is a multilingual, open-source, Web-based system used by RISM contributors worldwide. Muscat was developed by the RISM Central Office in cooperation with RISM Switzerland, and is based on a program that was originally developed by RISM Switzerland and RISM UK.

Muscat, which replaces the previous program Kallisto, is available free of charge to RISM’s national groups and other contributors. The program features an intuitive interface, is available in four languages, has version control, lets users leave comments on records for other users, can import data from the Virtual International Authority File (VIAF), and has a custom-built module to display incipits. Muscat uses MARC21, [End Page 698] and thus has an internationally widespread and standardized data model at its core. For the first time, RISM has full control over a cataloging program that continues to be further developed and improved.

In cooperation with the US RISM Office, the RISM Central Office is coordinating access to Muscat. Music librarians are welcome to request a Muscat account in order to update their RISM holdings or correct mistakes, add their holdings to printed music, or add new records for music manuscripts (any time period), printed music (generally through the nineteenth century), librettos, and treatises. In addition, musicologists working on projects such as catalogs of works or other source-based studies are encouraged to use Muscat for their work. RISM also welcomes new RISM contributors. Training is provided to everyone. For more information, a demonstration, or test access, please contact the RISM Central Office at contact@rism.info.

Jennifer A. Ward
Répertoire International des Sources Musicales

University of Washington has acquired the papers of the founder of the Seattle Opera, Glynn W. Ross. Included among the twenty-six boxes of materials are correspondence, administrative files, production notes, photographs, ephemera, and some family and personal papers; these range in date from 1963 when he was the general director of the Seattle Opera to the end of his life in 2005. The bulk of the material relates to the Seattle Opera as well as the Arizona Opera Company, where he was general director when he left Seattle in 1983. Under Ross’s guidance, the Seattle Opera grew to be a renowned company, especially for its annual Ring Cycle performances with two casts: one singing in German and the other in English. The correspondence files, for example, demonstate that Ross was in touch with a wide circle of opera singers, including stars like Maria Callas and Placido Domingo. The collection also includes many photographs of opera...

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